About us Our mission and values Our mission and values Our vision is that all deaf children have the same opportunities in life as their hearing peers. We want to raise expectations and outcomes for deaf children. We work to increase awareness, understanding and access to Auditory Verbal therapy by providing services directly to families and sharing our expertise with health and education professionals so that many more families can access Auditory Verbal therapy close to where they live. Founded in 2003, Auditory Verbal UK has grown to be the leading provider of Auditory Verbal therapy in the UK. Our charity and its leaders have won numerous sector awards and continue to collaborate with organisations working in the field in the UK and worldwide. What we do Our organisational focus is in four main areas: Supporting families through our early intervention programme. Training professionals through our internationally accredited training programme. Conducting research to strengthen the evidence base for our work. Increasing awareness and expectations of what deaf children can achieve. Our strategy We are now embarking on our 10 year plan to enable all families who want their child to learn to listen and talk, to be able to access Auditory Verbal therapy through publicly funded services. With an investment of £21.5m over the next 10 years, we can provide a sound future for deaf children and unlock an economic benefit of £152m, rising to £11.7 billion over 50 years. With children at risk of falling further behind as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic there has never been a more important time to invest in early and effective support for deaf children in the UK. Read more in our position paper. Our Values Achieving the best We believe in having high expectations for deaf children’s futures. We strive for excellence in everything that we do and have high professional standards. We continually review our ways of working to deliver the very best outcomes for deaf children. We want to be the best organisation we can be to work for and to work with. We are evidence-based and continually learn and improve from others in the public, private and voluntary sectors in the UK and internationally. Family-centred We view parents and carers as the child’s ‘best expert’. We understand that there is an emotional journey that families face following a diagnosis of deafness and strive to provide the support they need We support and provide guidance to families on additional resources and challenges they may face We empower parents/carers to develop their child’s listening, speaking and social skills. We support parents and their children to become strong advocates for themselves. Respectful We respect and value diversity. We respect language and communication preferences. We recognise and respect other professionals and each other. We value all our supporters equally. Diversity and Inclusion We strive to be inclusive and to embrace diversity. We strive to be inclusive in all that we do. We believe that diversity brings strength to our organisation. We celebrate different points of view and strive for a workplace where everyone feels empowered to bring their full, authentic selves to work. We believe diversity drives innovation and will continue to challenge and review our processes and practice, recognise where we need to improve and take action where needed. Collaborative We work collaboratively with professionals, organisations, children and parents in partnership. We identify and build bridges with people and organisations that can help us to make a difference for deaf babies and children in the UK. We work closely with our international partners who have been delivering listening and spoken language programmes for a number of years. We work collaboratively as a team to find solutions to challenges and learn from others.